


[twenty, a god, and in love]

by chrundletheokay



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Charlie and Dee are mentioned but don't appear, M/M, cw choking (on food), cw food, cw smoking (cigarettes and pot), it's more of a joke than anything, really this is meant to be fun and light, titles are hard... don't judge me pls i'll cry, tw death mentions (no one actually dies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22405678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrundletheokay/pseuds/chrundletheokay
Summary: Dennis is twenty years old the first time he considers that he might be in love.He and Mac are sitting in a Chinese restaurant a few blocks from campus, coming down from a decent high. They’re talking and laughing over a shared assortment of dishes and appetizers, when all of a sudden, Mac is coughing and choking around a mouthful of noodles.
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 6
Kudos: 80





	[twenty, a god, and in love]

Dennis is twenty years old the first time he considers that he might be in love.

He and Mac are sitting in a Chinese restaurant a few blocks from campus, coming down from a decent high. They’re talking and laughing over a shared assortment of dishes and appetizers, when all of a sudden, Mac is coughing and choking around a mouthful of noodles.

Dennis bursts out laughing, and spews Diet Coke in Mac’s face as he does so. Mac flails his arms around — perhaps trying to slap Dennis in retribution, perhaps reaching for help.

Cackling still, Dennis slides around the booth and claps Mac on the back until his coughing fit turns to wheezing and gasping. His eyes are watering, his cheeks flushed pink.

_God, I could just kiss him,_ Dennis thinks. It’s not the first time the impulse has struck him, but this does seem like an odd time for it to revisit. No one looks especially attractive as they’re choking to death, not even Mac.

“What the hell, man,” Mac exclaims after sucking down a shit ton of Coke and coughing some more. “I could’ve _died!”_

Dennis tries to suppress the grin stretched across his face. “Nah, I know CPR and first aid, and all that. I could’ve done mouth-to-mouth, or the Heimlich or whatever. You would’ve been fine.”

Mac’s eyes dart down to Dennis’s lips. His own mouth moves silently for a moment, as if trying to give voice to words his brain has not yet found. “Mouth-to-mouth?” he manages at last, still hoarse and rasping from all the choking.

“Dude, it’s a perfectly valid medical procedure; relax. I’m gonna be a vet some day.”

Mac blinks hard a few times. He twitches. “Yeah, for _animals,_ not people,” he says, and scoots back ever so slightly. That’s when Dennis realizes he still hasn’t returned to his own side of the booth.

“People are a kind of animal, dumbass,” he points out as he slides back to his previous seat. Although Mac has a point: _technically_ as a vet, he won’t be licensed to provide medical treatment to human beings.

Mac shakes his head and pokes at his food, seemingly hesitant to eat more, given the real potential that he may choke again.

“So… near-death experience, huh? Your life flash before your eyes?” Dennis jokes.

“No. Just your dumb face, laughing at me as I nearly died, you asshole,” Mac snaps, finally managing to put some volume and force behind his words.

See? Back to normal already. Or as close to normal as Mac has ever been. (If Dennis were a proper vet already, that would be his official diagnosis.)

Dennis laughs. “You’re welcome,” he replies. At this point, he’s mostly fucking with Mac just to fuck with him. However, Mac _did_ call his face dumb, and that warrants retribution.

“You’re _welcome?”_ Mac repeats, his voice loud and shrill with incredulity.

“Yeah! You’ve seen my face, right? I know you have. I’m just saying,” Dennis explains over Mac’s indignant protests, “if someone’s face has to be the last thing you see before you die, why not this one? You really wanna go out looking at Sweet Dee’s birdlike features? Or staring into Charlie’s demented, beady little eyes?”

Mac grimaces. “No. Probably not,” he mutters, jabbing at a spring roll with a single chopstick. At some point, Dennis will have to teach him proper table manners. “I still think you’re an asshole, though. And a total narcissist, by the way,” Mac concludes more confidently.

“You’d be a narcissist too, if you had this face,” Dennis replies. “Although yours isn’t too bad; I’ll give you that. Actually, y’know, you have really nice lips.”

Mac looks up at that, his mouth stuffed full and cheeks bulging with what looks like an entire spring roll. Wide-eyed, he mumbles incomprehensibly around the food. He looks like a giant hamster.

Dennis rolls his eyes. He’s twenty years old, and he’s a god; he’ll never die. But if he _were_ to die, he certainly would not do it like Mac, choking on cheap food in a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant.

Given the impossibility of Dennis’s death, the question of whose face he’d like to see before dying is hardly relevant. Mac’s face, though… Mac needs to figure out how to eat properly, like a civilized adult, so he doesn’t die prematurely from choking on fried rice, or from spring roll-induced aspiration pneumonia.

The two of them have been friends for about five years now. At times, it feels like ages; at others, it seems like little more than the blink of an eye. Either way, Mac’s face is one Dennis wouldn’t mind looking at for the rest of his life. He’s gone to bed looking at that face on more than a handful of occasions, and has woken up to it, too. Privately, Dennis thinks he could get used to that.

They’re so close to campus, Dennis remembers suddenly. There’s a building nearby where he’s had a few classes. Beside it is a little courtyard: a patch of grass and a few benches, and small trees overhead, covering it all in a canopy of leaves. He imagines leading Mac there for a smoke after supper. The crickets are chirping outside, and the sun has set. This late, there shouldn’t be anyone around.

Sure, Dennis will get a bit cold as they sit out in the dark, and Mac will make a snide remark about Dennis’s delicate constitution or his lack of body fat. But he’ll take his leather jacket off all the same, and wrap it snugly around Dennis’ shoulders. As he does so, Dennis will lean in, so smooth and suave that Mac won’t even realize what’s happening until their lips meet halfway. Dennis’s eyelashes will flutter shut just like all the pretty girls do in movies.

He put on mascara and a little bit of foundation before Mac came over. He has a new tube of his favorite chapstick in his pocket, and it’s made his lips so perfectly soft and kissable. It’s perfect; he’s ready. Surely Mac couldn’t resist.

In just a few seconds flat, Dennis has the whole scenario choreographed in his head.

“Are you alright dude? You look kind of…” Mac trails off, gesturing vaguely, as if allowing Dennis fill in the blank for himself.

_Holy shit,_ Dennis thinks distantly. He shakes his head, clears his throat, and takes a long sip of Diet Coke to buy himself time. “Just thinking about a chem quiz I have coming up,” he lies.

Mac laughs. “Looked more like you were thinking about a chem _classmate,”_ he teases Dennis, kicking lightly at his ankles under the table. “Some hot nerdy chick in a labcoat, huh?”

“Shut up,” mutters Dennis.

“Aww, look at you — you’re blushing,” Mac coos. A mocking, cloying smile brightens up his face, and there’s a matching twinkle in his eye. “Such a pretty boy.”

“I am,” Dennis insists, his pride prickling slightly at the continued teasing.

“I know you are.” Mac’s tone of voice sounds almost serious this time. He raises his eyebrows just slightly, in a way that seems significant — indicative of something important, even if Dennis can’t divine what exactly.

He waits for more information, more clues. But instead, Mac ducks his head down and shoves a huge forkful of food into his mouth.

Dennis bites his tongue just in time to keep a truly embarrassing question from slipping past his lips: _Is this a date?_

He hasn’t even had time to properly suppress that thought before his head swims with countless other thoughts, things he’s tempted to say but knows better than to admit aloud: _You’re such an asshole, but you’re kinda cute when you blush. Stop choking to death on Chinese food, stop riding that shitty second-hand motorcycle of yours, and stop dealing and getting in trouble with the cops. I want us to be friends for the rest of our lives, and I can’t do that if you’re dead or in jail, you piece of shit. Don’t you get that I love you? Don’t you get—_

Hang on, what?

“Dennis?”

No, that makes sense. It sits in his gut in a way that feels true.

_Fuck._

“I have to go,” Dennis blurts out.

“What?”

“It’s a—There’s a thing I have. I have—I have a thing,” he stammers as he jumps up from his seat, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process.

“What are you talking about?”

“I have to go. Frat thing. You wouldn’t understand; I’ll tell you later.”

Dennis darts out the door. _Oh,_ he’s so fucked.

He runs home, his form impeccable, his feet hitting the pavement in perfect time with this thought: _I’M—SO—FUCKED. I’m—so—fucked. I’M—SO—FUCKED._

He doesn’t stop running until he reaches his room on the third floor of the frat house. It still smells of weed. Mac’s leather jacket lies on the bedroom floor.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, suddenly exhausted, Dennis sinks to the floor. He doesn’t allow himself to think about what he’s doing, but acts purely on instinct as he pulls the jacket into his lap and tight against his chest. It smells like Mac. This is, admittedly, not the cleanest or freshest scent ever; but it’s comforting and warm in its familiarity.

_Fuck,_ he’s so fucked. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he slides the jacket on. He reaches into the pocket, where Mac has left a pack of cigarettes. He lights one up and waits.

Mac will be back for the jacket and smokes soon enough; there’s no doubt in Dennis’s mind about that. But in spite of his waning panic, that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr, and validate my shitposts and my obsessive writing: @chrundletheokay, same as on here
> 
> P.S. pls hit me up if you have any tips/resources on editing, because I have literally 100+ WIPS (I wish I were joking; it's so embarrassing), and editing is where I always get stuck


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